Dale, it's evident from the beginning that Bettman wanted to use this lockout to break the players' union. That's why he insisted on a salary cap and refused to budge. That's why he told the owners 10 years ago that he would fight for a salary cap. This isn't about money; it's about power.
As far as franchise-folding goes, at least your Red Wings are safe. But one report a few months ago listed the Mighty Ducks as a potential casualty. Disney has been trying to sell the club for the past 4-5 years; the Ducks' lone appearance in the Cup finals hasn't changed that. And the fans here have been awfully fickle ever since Ron Wilson got fired as coach in 1997, the club's first playoff appearance.
At any rate, I expect the Penguins, Panthers, Thrashers, Predators, Sabres and Senators to go the way of the Montreal Maroons, the New York Americans and the Philadelphia Quakers when all this shakes out.
Joe:
I don't doubt that. It seems to be the goal of a lot of the hardliners in the ownership, too--guys like Wirtz in Chicago. Given the plantation history of NHL ownership, I sympathize with the players.
But the fact remains that the NHLPA's "no salary cap" was a huge bluff, and was successfully called by Bettman. If you were willing to cave all along, cave early so you can exploit the cracks in the ownership--not all of them are like Wirtz. The Wings, the Rangers and Avs were never behind the cap in the first place, and could have pushed for a higher, softer cap if the waverers at least knew that there would be controls.
Too late.
Ironically, Goodenow caving like that at the end may do more to break the union than anything else. The bafflement of the rank and file at the reversal yesterday was palpable--Chelios sounded stunned.
No need to equate the NHL with "the sport." I grew up in Milwaukee - no NHL team there, but a minor-league team, the Admirals - when I lived there, they were IHL; I think the league's name has since changed. I had TONS of fun at Admirals games - it was good hockey - and it cost a fraction of what it cost to get tickets to, say, the Chicago Blackhawks.
Same thing applies wrt, e.g., MLB. I liked Brewers games, but probably the most fun I ever had was at a Madison Muskies (class A) game.
When Wisconsin agreed to build a new stadium for the Brewers, honestly my first thought was, "There goes our shot at getting a good AAA team."
1. Goodenow can never regain the trust of his rank-and-file, after agreeing to the cap.
2. Why the big market owners- Flyers' Ed Snider, Rangers' James Dolan, Wings' Mike Illich- joined the rest of the management lemmings in falling off the cliff is an utter mystery. To sacrifice a whole season, and probably longer, for a hard cap plus other concessions makes little sense. Then again, neither did the players' stubbornness. They all belong together, like Penguins of a feather.
3. Two years ago, the NY Post reported that as many as a dozen NHL teams were for sale, with no takers. Including the NJ Devils. Joe D. lists the possible franchises that may never open for business again. The Penguins were hoping for a slots parlor to keep their threadbare operation alive. In a market that is a FootballTown, first, last and foremost. See video of empty Pirates' playoff seats during the Bonds/Bonilla years.
4. Bettman gets the most blame. For freezing out the players. For expanding w
....Wildly into the Sun Belt. To think he was a protege of David Stern. Oy.
5. Collective yawn from the public. The Super Bowl is still fresh in our memories- at least around here. Pitchers and catchers are reporting to spring training- while Jose Canseco dimes out every other modern-day slugger. The Daytona 500 gets started this Sunday. March Madness is at our doorstep. Let the NHL suffer in its self-imposed obscurity. The Market Hath Spoken.
Repeat: Original Six. Original Six.
No offense to Joe D'H, but the "Mighty Ducks" exemplify what's wrong with the NHL. The League should be pared by at least half, with all teams south of Detroit and Chicago sent packing. Let pro hockey flourish as a healthy niche sport in Canada and the northern US cities where people care about it.
Come to think of it, bringing back the Montreal Maroons would be a great idea.
I think a contraction on the scale Mark suggests would be a tough pill to swallow. The only leagues that have done that before were on the way to being belly-up within a few seasons.
I think hockey should pattern itself on foreign sports leagues and adopt promotion/relegation as a basis for which cities get major league teams and which don't. If we really need Maroons, let them win successive championships in the UHL, the ECHL, and the AHL: let them earn their way in. Six is way too few teams for the NHL. Thirty is closer to the ideal number, but the competition in a 16-team NHL today would surpass the 6-team days like a rocket in orbit over a plane.
My other beef is that major league sports are far too rich-owner based. The Packers have been a successful small-market team (though for other reasons in addition to community ownership). They and other places could prove the main ingredients for successful sport are athletes and fans. Owners are perhaps a luxury we could do without
Actually, Mark, the "Original Six" is a myth. The only teams that were "original" at the NHL's founding were the Montreal Canadiens and Toronto Arenas (later St. Pats, later Maple Leafs). The four American members all were expansion teams or moved from other cities (Dale, didn't the Red Wings' predecesor, the Cougars, move from someplace else in Canada?). The only one of the other "original" teams that I can recall was the Quebec Bulldogs.
BTW, Kevin, the IHL folded a few years ago. The AHL absorbed the Admirals and a few other IHL teams (Houston Aeros, Cleveland, Utah Grizzlies, Grand Rapids Griffins, to name a few).
As a Southern Californian, I can say that few people will miss the Ducks, especially after this lockout. The Kings, however, are another matter. Kings fans sell out Staples Center and are extremely passionate about hockey, though they may be a relative minority here.
As a Southern Californian
People list the St. Louis Blues as safe if the NHL comes back but I'm not sure about that. Their owner, Bill Laurie, has been trying hard to get into the NBA for some time and has lost a ton on the Blues. It wouldn't surprise me at all if he decided that hockey was no longer worth it and either sold the team out of town or abandoned it altogether.
Not that it would bother me any. I drove out the other night and watched the Missouri River Otters of the United Hockey League play in St. Charles. The UHL is kind of the descendant of the IHL with old IHL cities and teams like Fort Wayne, Flint, Port Huron, Kalamazoo and Muskegon. $15 got me a seat in the second row behind the Fort Wayne bench. $15 would buy me a nosebleed seat at a Blues game if I got there early enough.
Nice thing about the Otters is that you can take your family out there, get great seats for not a lot of money and have a really good time without going into serious debt. As far as I'm concerned, the NHL
can take its time coming back(don't know why it dropped that part).
I'm from Buffalo, and already you've got to look hard for people who give a rip if the Sabres return. Most of them are downtown bartenders and hoteliers. The Sabres have done nothing for anyone else in this town, except lure the sports-crazed into sinking several hundred dollars each year into season tickets instead of their kids' college fund.
Good riddance.
Boston (AKA "Titletown") is pretty much a passionate hotbed of hockey. . . and practically no one here has even noticed the Bruins are gone.
If you grew up around here in the 70's and 80's listening to Fred Cusack and Derek Sanderson on Channel 38 or Bob Wilson and the Chief calling Bruin games on the radio and witnessed big-haired chicks from Revere and Medford filing into the Garden in Nevin Markwart and Cam Neely jerseys, you'd understand what an unbelievable statement that really is.
(Then again, I suppose its much more believable than the following: The Boston Red Sox are World Series Champions and the Patriots are repeat Super Bowl Champions.) Hell even BC is 21-1 and the Benpot the other night was a thriller (Chris Bourque making like Dad in the '96 All Star game and sweeping in a backhanded winner to give BU the Pot and break the hearts of Northeastern fans everywhere).
I guess what I'm saying is that if the NHL is getting cold-shouldered apathy in a market li
(cont.)ke Boston, they are in a whole lot more trouble than they realize.
Frankly, if you're going to piss off Boston fans, its probably not a good time to do it when we have such appealing alternatives, especially when you haven't paraded down Tremont Street in 33 years.
Harry Sinden has been pushing for fiscal sanity for years (I still don't think he ever got over the one time he truly did open the purse strings . . .and ended up subsidizing Kevin Stevens various addictions.) I fear he may be forced to witness the ruin of the game league he's long feared and forecasted.
Americans will accept cokehead 'roid-raging murdering ho' beating paternity suit-collecting United Way-hawking millionaire "role models" as long as the game is football. For other sports, I think people are getting tired of the greed, the hypocrisy, the ridiculous prices, the utter corruption of players and owners, and the entire sports fan dance. I have to think that even hero-worshipping kids are sick and tired of looking into the stands and seeing their knucklehead fathers jawing their coaches over some perceived slight, while their mothers scream and expose to the world that they are indeed "women with chests". Baseball is slipping. Basketball is slipping even more. NHL hockey as we know it is a dead man walking. Stuff it in a sack and kick it back across the border. Let the fans rediscover that they are husbands and fathers.
Very well said, Ralph.
Gary Bettman is to the NHL what Cardinals Law, Mahony, McCormick, etc. (and the predators they protected) are to the Church.
Why do I blame Bettman and not Goodenow? Because Bettman conspired with most of the owners to shut down this season. There wasn't going to be any NHL hockey, no matter what concession Goodenow and the players' union made.
I suggest those NHL employees who have lost their jobs as a result of this mess join in a class-action suit against Bettman.
Egad- in absolute agreement with Joe D. over an issue. It all falls on Bettman's desk. Even the Flyers' Ed Snider- who has done more to promote the sport than virtually any other U.S. citizen- continues to parrot the party line and support his president. The one who presided over the misguided league expansion into the Sun Belt (Miami? Phoenix? A second franchise in metro L.A.? Atlanta for a second time? Nashville? NASHVILLE?)The one who never entered into meaningful negotiations with NHLPA head Bob (Sold Em Down The River) Goodenow. The one whose legacy will be the permanent damage, if not demise, of a league whose post-season play was simply more proud, intense and competitive than the playoffs in any other pro sports. Now six to ten franchises that Joe previously identified- Penguins, Islanders, Hurricane, Panthers, Thrashers, Mighty Ducks, a Canadian team not in Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver, possibly the Devils- could cease to exist.... Wait- I've expended far more energy and
As someone born in Britain who lived most of his American life in the Sun Belt, I am a marginal hockey fan at best. (With an 80-game season and half the teams making the playoffs, it's hard to get the sense that any particular regular-season game matters. And I don't have a rooting interest.)
Still, I'm gonna miss the NHL come April and May. There is nothing in sport more exciting than a Stanley Cup playoffs Game 7. And no dilemma as a sports fan more ticklish than having double- and triple-headers of NBA and NHL playoff games, sometimes on both ESPN *and* the Deuce, every night for almost a month in the early rounds of the two leagues' overlapping playoffs.
I also hope Joe is wrong (though I suspect he's right) about half-a-dozen or so franchises folding.
Do you really think the Canadian government would let Ottawa fold, after having recently lost teams in Quebec and Winnipeg to the United States? Keep in mind that it's their national sport in a way that it is not America's.
Since you're from Granholm's state, I guess it's no surprise you leave out Denver as a hockey hotbed. Sure Don Cherry's 1970s bunch carpetbagged away, but the Avs have been successful both on the ice and at the boxoffice. The loss of this season (and possibly one or even two more) was telegraphed by Stan Kroencke's aggressive buying of other "content providers" (lacrosse, arenaball, etc.) to fill Pepsi Center while the Avs are on hiatus.
The new minor league team in northern Colorado has a long sellout streak that doesn't look to short out anytime soon.
Another downside is how hard it's become to get tix for the national collegiate champs in my neighborhood.
freestanley.com offers an interesting idea.
Victor, you might be right about the Canadian government and the Ottawa Senators. OTOH, given the Canadian government's liberal (if not Liberal, as in the party) bent, why should they bail out any business they can't nationalize first? And they can't nationalize the NHL.
Besides, the government didn't bail out either the Nordiques or the Jets. Why should the Senators be any different? Unless Canadian politicians and bureaucrats view the Senators the way their American counterparts view the Washington Redskins.
"For want of a brain, a sport was lost."
Could be applied to today's Church, unfortunately.
"For want of a brain, a faith was lost."
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